A little girl who suffers from cerebral palsy is on track to raise the money for a life-changing operation which will give her the chance to walk.

Scarlett Hewitt, eight, relies on a walking frame to move around because of her condition, which was triggered at birth by a heart defect.

At just two weeks old she had open heart surgery which corrected the position of her arteries, but caused her brain damage and led to her being diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

Hope: Scarlett Hewitt at her parents' wedding

Now her family, who live in Croydon, south London, hope she will one day be fully mobile after recently being accepted for pioneering surgery at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital in America.

Their online fundraising page entitled 'Scarlett's Wish to Walk' has raised more than £20,000 in just seven weeks.

Her mother Lisa and father John, who also have daughters Sienna, seven, and Saffron, three, had hoped she would be able to undergo the procedure, called a selective dorsal rhizotomy, at Bristol Hospital, but it was cancelled last year following cuts to NHS funding.